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This week has yielded a near-unprecedented tide of national horror at news out of Kamloops that a ground radar survey has uncovered evidence of up to 215 unmarked graves of children who died while attending the Kamloops Indian Residential School.
While Canadians have used such words as “shock” or “disbelief” to describe the discovery of up to 215 unmarked graves of children who died while attending the Kamloops Indian Residential School, the truth is much more telling: It was never a secret that the sites of Indian Residential Schools abounded with the graves of dead children. Communities and survivors knew the bodies were there, as did any investigation or government commission that bothered to ask.
NOW Magazine
How many Indigenous children died in Canada’s residential schools?
The official death toll is 3,213, but there was no policy for the burial of children until seven decades after the schools were first established By Enzo DiMatteo
Many Canadians are unaware of our history of residential schools.
How many more? The discovery of the remains of 215 children at the former site of an Indian residential school in Kamloops, BC, has woken Canadians up to the horrors of a mostly neglected part of the country’s history.
But it’s just the beginning.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) report into Canada’s residential school system estimates that some 6,000 Indigenous children taken from their families as part of the government’s inculturation policies following confederation may have died in the 150 residential schools run by the Catholic and Anglican churches from the 1880s to as late as 1996.
Lasting well into the 1970s, the state-sponsored residential school system was aimed at eradicating indigenous culture and transforming Native children into a pliant workforce for Canadian capitalism.
Winnipeg Free Press By: Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press Posted:
Last Modified: 3:34 PM CDT Tuesday, Jun. 1, 2021 Save to Read Later
HALIFAX - A survivor of the largest residential school in the Maritimes says the search will continue for unmarked graves at the sprawling rural site north of Halifax.
Mi kmaq activist Dorene Bernard stands on the shores of the Shubenacadie River, a 72-kilometre tidal river that cuts through the middle of Nova Scotia and flows into the Bay of Fundy, in Fort Ellis, N.S. on July 31, 2018. Bernard, a survivor of the largest residential school in the Maritimes, says the search will continue for unmarked graves at the site of the former Shubenacadie Indian Residential school north of Halifax. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
HALIFAX A survivor of the largest residential school in the Maritimes says the search will continue for unmarked graves at the site north of Halifax. Dorene Bernard, a Mi’kmaq elder, confirmed today that ground-penetrating radar was used at the former Shubenacadie Indian Residential school in April and December of last year, but no graves […]